Opinions on Marantz SA-7S1, Nagra CDP

I heard the Nagra CDP in a friend's system for several hours. I liked the sound -- clear, detailed and open, without being overly edgy and brittle. None of us preferred it over the Naim CD555 that it was being compared to, but, it is about half the price.

I also really like its look and compact size. However, it does have some operational quirks. If I recall correctly, if one operated the unit manually to start play on the machine, the remote control became inoperable. The remote was also quite weird and difficult to use. Ergonomically speaking, I would not agree that this player is well thought out.

I too like a compact player with front/drawer type of loading. But, the Philips mechanism that Nagra employs is really meant for top loading, so Nagra had to engineer a drawer to move the whole transport in order to convert it to front loading. The key question is whether they can successfully manage vibration dampening/isolation with such a mechanism.

The bottom line is the success of such implementation. I like the sound of that player and I also like its unusual looks.

I've seen and heard the Marantz, though only in a dealer's system. It is very well built and operates very smoothly. I've always been impressed with what they offer for the money in digital source components.